3 Projects at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge Until 2028, Including New Pool & Hotel Room Refurbishments

Our favorite Walt Disney World resort, which has been in a state of perpetual construction for the last few years, just got new pool and hotel refurbishments added to the construction calendar for 2027 and 2028, joining the ongoing exterior maintenance. This shares dates and details, plus our commentary about the impact of the work on guests and which rooms probably will not be changed.

This is one of a few major room refurbishments that are currently underway, along with the ongoing Animal Kingdom Lodge, All Stars Movies, and Port Orleans projects, plus the upcoming Art of Animation hard goods overhaul. It’s also worth noting that November and December are typically the months when more of these projects get added to the calendar or extended.

We’re expecting this to happen with All Star Music, Coronado Springs, Old Key West, and potentially another unexpected wildcard or two. Keep an eye on our Walt Disney World Hotel Construction Tracker for further updates over the next couple of months. In fact, Disney’s Wilderness Lodge is one such “unexpected wildcard.”

This is because Wilderness Lodge has already completed multiple room refurbishments in the last 5 years. Even Summer 2027 feels about a year or two too early for another such project.

The most recent of these was to the Copper Creek Villas & Cabins at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge, which underwent a soft goods room refurbishment over the course of multiple months last year. These are the Disney Vacation Club units located in the main building, and they were refreshed over the course of last year.

A few years before that, the Boulder Ridge Villas at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge had their own hard goods refurbishment, which wrapped up in 2023. As we’ve mentioned repeatedly, the Boulder Ridge Villas are our new #1 rooms in all of Walt Disney World. These rooms were gutted and completely redone. The end result is excellent (see below).

Given both the recency and results of these room refurbishments, there’s no reason to believe Disney would be refreshing them again so soon. We can safely rule out the DVC side of the resort, in either building, as being the subject of this refurbishment notice.

That leaves the hotel rooms in Wilderness Lodge, which received their big refurbishment starting back in 2019 and concluding in mid-2021. That was interrupted by the COVID closure, and if our records are correct, the rooms didn’t actually come online in any meaningful capacity until 2021.

That makes 2027 slightly early for another room refurbishment at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge, but the hotel rooms are nevertheless almost assuredly what’s being refreshed. Everything else has been redone more recently, so process of elimination narrows it to the room inventory on the hotel side of the main building.

It’s possible that Walt Disney World accelerated the Wilderness Lodge refresh by a year or two due to guest feedback with the design or the rooms having worse wear and tear than anticipated. A lot of projects done during the COVID era suffered from labor shortages, supply chain disruptions, and so forth.

The end result sometimes hasn’t held up as well as a result. Walt Disney World has also trumpeted the increased guest satisfaction scores at many redone resorts over the last few years, but I’ve never heard any such boasting about the circa-2021 or 2022 projects. Here’s hoping that this also means Contemporary is being fast-tracked and ditching its Incredibles design!

Wilderness Lodge Room Refurbishment in 2027

As for dates, the room refurbishment of Disney’s Wilderness Lodge will run from July 2027 through September 2027. That’s the timeframe confirmed by Walt Disney World; no specific dates or other details have been announced.

We’d only note here that it’s common these days for these projects to be delayed by 1-2 months, but that seems unlikely here. July through September 2027 will be the slowest stretch of the year, and Disney will want this finished before the busy months of October through December 2027.

As for changes to expect, there’s not really a great template for Wilderness Lodge. What Imagineering and DVC did with Boulder Ridge and Copper Creek is fantastic, and we can only hope that the result there is this good. The refresh here could borrow thematic elements from those, but I wouldn’t necessarily expect anything substantively similar.

Another comparison, albeit in a totally different style, is Yacht Club. My big hope is that the rooms swap out the feature wall art for something more timeless. Generally speaking, we’re not anticipating any colossal changes. It’s always possible that Disney surprises us by testing out a new room style, but don’t expect them to revert to the old rustic looks or bring back the bunkbeds.

Although not officially stated, this room refurbishment at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge is almost certainly a soft goods refurbishment. For one thing, these just had a hard goods overhaul in 2019-2021, so they’re only (almost) due for a refresh. For another thing, 3 months isn’t enough time for a full refurbishment.

For those unfamiliar with this term, a soft goods refurbishment is undertaken to extend the life of a particular room design, and to give them a fresh look that takes advantage of industry trends and innovations in design. Soft goods refurbishments typically involve updating furnishings, including but not limited to wall coverings, flooring, linens, decor, and some furniture.

Walt Disney World has been utilizing soft goods refurbishments quite effectively in the last decade to introduce space-saving design features. Consequently, the line has been blurred between soft and hards goods refurbishments, to the point that we’ve seen massive changes during soft goods projects (especially on the DVC side) to install new fold-down beds and make other major changes.

In terms of the impact to guests staying at Wilderness Lodge, there probably won’t be much of one. The last time Walt Disney World did a room reimagining in the main lodge, entire floors were taken out of commission one at a time, and the work was only done during daytime hours.

We stayed at Wilderness Lodge twice during that project, and I had to go out of my way to see signs (literally–pictured above and below) of the work. I wouldn’t have even known it was going on, but for those and various hallways being blocked off, which was visible from the lobby below. And that was during the more consequential hard goods refurbishment, which was an actual gutting of the rooms. This is likely a lighter refresh.

If you’re staying above or below one of the floors being worked on and you tend to take naps during the day, it’s entirely possible your experience could differ. In which case, we’d simply recommend placing a room request to be on a floor that’s at least one-removed from the current progress. This applies to guests on the hotel side. If you’re staying in the Copper Creek Villas, you should be fine without any requests.

Exterior Work Wraps Up in Late 2026

As intimated above, this is not the only work being done at or around Wilderness Lodge. Back in August 2024, Walt Disney World filed the first construction permits for Wilderness Lodge that reflected a lengthy and large-scale project taking place until December 2026. Shortly thereafter, Walt Disney World added a bulletin to the website indicating the resort would be undergoing an exterior refurbishment.

Two years felt like a long time for exterior refurbishment work, but that wasn’t too surprising. Walt Disney World has taken its time with similar projects at Yacht and Beach Club. Fast-forward to November 2026, and this now has a completion date of “late 2026.” So pretty much right on par with the timeline established over two years ago.

In my stays at and visits to Wilderness Lodge over the last couple of years, I’ve never noticed an excessive amount of exterior construction. There have been small areas of scaffolding up on various portions of the resort as work progresses in phases (which is why it’s taking so long), but that’s about it.

Feature Pool Closure in 2028

The other new project is that from January 2028 through Spring 2028, Copper Creek Springs Pool will undergo refurbishment.

Since we know Wilderness Lodge naming convention can be confusing, this is the resort’s main pool between the main building and Bay Lake that’s home to its waterslide and other features. Guests staying at Wilderness Lodge from January to Spring 2028 will still have access to the resort’s secondary pool, Boulder Ridge Cove.

Boulder Ridge Cove is a fairly large pool–more than just a quiet pool–and the refurbishment is coming at a cooler time of year. Here’s hoping that the pool project wraps up before Spring Break or the weather warms up, otherwise Boulder Ridge Cove might be bursting at the seams.

It’ll be interesting to see whether Walt Disney World will allow Wilderness Lodge guests to use the pools at Fort Wilderness Campground or Disney’s Lakeshore Lodge in early 2028 during the feature pool refurbishment. Lakeshore Lodge will be open by then, but presumably operating below full capacity, so there might be spare bandwidth there.

As discussed in Walt Disney World Quietly Cracks Down on Unauthorized Pool Use via Rule Enforcement & Verification, Disney sometimes allows this type of pool hopping among sister resorts during refurbishments, but we wouldn’t bank on it happening. We’ll update if/when Walt Disney World shares more, which may not be for another year or longer.

Finally, there’s the ongoing work at the former River Country site, which is nearby Wilderness Lodge.

Construction on Disney’s Lakeshore Lodge resumed a little over two years ago and is now entering its home stretch ahead of that hotel’s grand opening in July 2027. At this point, most of the taller cranes are gone, primary exterior work has been completed, and work has moved inside to guest rooms.

There’s still work being done on the pool, outlying restaurant buildings and grounds, but crews are not actively building the 10-story tower. Disney’s Lakeshore Lodge had minimal impact on Wilderness Lodge to begin with, and has none now.

While technically between Wilderness Lodge and Fort Wilderness, the Lakeshore Lodge construction site is much closer to Fort Wilderness than Wilderness Lodge. You can see work in the distance and have a much better view from the boats, but that’s about it. The only real exception is to guests staying in the Cascade Cabins on the far end (closer to Fort Wilderness).

Ultimately, there’s a lot of current and upcoming work at Wilderness Lodge between now and early 2028. The good news is that, once all of these projects wrap up, Wilderness Lodge should be done with construction for a while and the whole Wilderness Resort District (or whatever we’re calling it), should be looking great and offering an embarassment of walkable amenities.

In the meantime, all of this might sound overwhelming, to the point that the totality of it makes you rethink staying at Wilderness Lodge. Personally, this will not cause us to avoid Wilderness Lodge, even with a toddler who needs midday breaks for naps. The work is sufficiently isolated, targeted, or off in the distance that it gives me no pause.

This isn’t as bad as staying at the Polynesian during Island Tower construction or as impactful as multiple Deluxe Resorts even right now (including the Poly). It’ll be more like Yacht Club during its soft goods refurbishment last year, which was barely noticeable. (We heard zero negative feedback about that one from guests; this year’s exterior refurbishment has been a very different story.)

Most guests will be perfectly fine with room requests if they’re really worried. Even if you don’t make a request, you’re unlikely to be within earshot of the work.

I’m more excited about the upside of being able to walk from Wilderness Lodge to Lakeshore Lodge to Fort Wilderness, and the dining options and other amenities that “unlocks,” than I am concerned about the soft goods room refurbishment or pool project.

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YOUR THOUGHTS

Thoughts on the construction at and around Wilderness Lodge between now and early 2028? Excited for the room refurbishment at the hotel? Have you stayed at Wilderness Lodge since work began on the exterior or adjacent Lakeshore Lodge? What was your experience? Did you even notice that these projects were happening? Do you agree or disagree with our recommendation to make a room request rather than stay elsewhere? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!